You might think it odd that I would segregate my writing and speaking about race in America from my mainstream publication. But I do so purposefully in that I don’t think of myself as particularly owing my success to racial appeals of any sort, even as the racebuster I am. Somebody’s got to make that logo. But it is important for the success of Free Black Thought that I underscore that racebusting work, and so occasionally I will here. For the other stuff, I have my own special section of Substack called Human Race Man, but you already know this.
What I was thinking in the runup to recording this episode was to isolate the good stuff from the junk. In that regard I’m a bit of a snob for the highbrow and more refined aspects of American culture with black flavor. While there’s a goodly amount of my own personal existential questions being raised in a few of the books mentioned, I can happily say they have been resolved. When people talk about American slavery providing ‘native alienation’ and slamming a wrecking ball into the African American psyche that supposedly resonates down generations, I call bullshit. That’s the nicest thing I can do, in fact. Because if indeed the devastation of slavery is necessarily echoed through generations then either I am a stunning exception or completely deluded. I believe I am neither. I think it is perfectly within the realm of ordinary possibility for individuals and families to survive calamity. It’s not as if nobody is living in Hiroshima today. I’m perfectly happy to say that I was born yesterday on the molehill of the society of computing. Am I sitting on a mountain or not? It’s undoubtedly a mountain, and if other [black] Americans ignored that molehill when I was telling them how awesome it was, it simply sucks to be them. Not sorry. This mountain too may crumble, but I’ve seen the lay of the land from its heights. And yes that includes the hindsight of what black flavored culture tasted good then and still tastes good and is good for you. That, as opposed to the litany of what I call ‘statistical morality’ - those political entertainments offered up in the social science style of disparate impacts by race. I don’t have a sad story of visiting my father in prison. I don’t have a sad story of literally boxing my way out of a desperate ghetto. I don’t have a sad story of being beat down by cops on a pretense. I am not sitting around waiting to tell my story of racial woe and so capitalize.
But yeah I do have to make the above thick paragraph of explanation, because quite frankly I am sensitive to the newbs who may have never heard it explained that way from a black American writer. It sucks to be them as well, but I am here to be of gentle assistance, because I do indeed think racebusting is fundamental to the functional operation of the open society and self-rule. That’s more important than cultivation of a sentimental preference for heartwarming stories of African American success. That is what has happened to Black History Month from my perspective. It has become sappy when it’s not preachy. It’s like an old rerun of an episode of Sanford & Son. Sadder still when that could be said to be a high water mark. Everybody tells me that The Wire is truth. It’s not my cup of tea. I might find something one of these days, but I’d rather watch Slow Horses.
What do I mean by racebusting? I mean leaving cultural artifacts denuded of racial significance such that it is not a default to consider the practitioners of that artifact to have any racial advantage. Nobody who knows basketball calls Luca Doncic a white Harlem Globetrotter. Nobody who knows classical piano calls Martha Argerich an Argentinian Wilhelm Kempff. Let basketball be basketball. Let classical piano be classical piano. There has never been a good reason to racialize either, but we must suffer those persistent, idiot racial politics. So you could look at this episode as two American men who, in days less capable than we are today, found love for literature and enterprise, and needed to know we could call it black and it could apply to our young selves. Fait accompli. So we pass it on in the non-combative spirit of “Hey that was great.”
As for Reparations. I think there are one or two stories I haven’t told and haven’t found the necessity to tell. I’ll eat that baloney sandwich when it’s on my plate.
Loved your essay but...am I Michael Jackson or Eddie Murphy? I do tend transracial so there is that/smile. Carry on. I suppose Glenn and John are sweating the new guys on the block as Bowen & Twyman are at it again.